Into The Pit
by Gallows Hill six-stringer
Summary: Rated R for Language and Violence. Shannon is trapped in the nightmare of Silent Hill, his only companions are his friend Dan and a soft female voice crying for help. NEW CHAPTER!!! Please R+R!
1. Alone In The Dark

"Damn it!" Shannon exclaimed.  
  
He looked at his watch again and the hands stopped at 9:25 AM. For some reason, his watch had stopped working. His father had left him that watch before he divorced his mother; that was the last he had ever seen of his father before he moved to Los Angeles. He looked at his radio alarm clock and saw the display was blank. "Fuck," he cursed to himself, "the power must have gone out."  
  
Shannon sat up and looked over his surroundings. Although his room looked exactly the same as it did when he went to bed, something seemed odd to him. He looked out the window, but could barely see anything through the fog. Plus, if he didn't know better, he could've sworn that he saw snow falling outside. He got out of his bed and started shivering immediately. It shouldn't be this cold, he thought to himself. After all, today was his graduation from Kubrick High. It was the beginning of freakin' June, for chrissakes!  
  
"Ma!" Shannon called out. He got dressed, putting on a padded leather jacket to keep out the cold. He peered in his mother's bedroom, figuring she might have overslept as well. There was no one inside. "Dave!" he called, this time to his mother's boyfriend, who often spent the night at their house. Although Shannon had no love for Dave, whom he looked upon as someone who stole his mother from his dad, he at least credited him for treating him fairly and not like the typical "red-headed stepchild", which by most accounts he really was (his mother and Dave had not married). At least with them both being gone, he thought that maybe Dave was out with his mother. But still, something did not seem right.  
  
"Fenris! Come here, boy!" Shannon called out to his German shepherd/Alaskan husky mix. Normally, Fenris would've trampled him by now, coating his face with dog slobber. But now even his dog seemed to be missing.  
  
"Hello?!" he called out. No response.  
  
He ran to his mother's room and pulled out her handgun from her dresser drawer. Something was definitely not right. He ran downstairs and searched every room, but found no one, not even a trace or even a sticky note. He saw no sign of struggle, and nothing material seemed to be missing. He looked out the window and saw both his mother's car and Dave's car parked outside. Shannon got another chill up his spine, this time of dread. He picked up the phone, but hearing no dial tone, hung it up. He turned on the TV, thinking maybe something had happened and the town had been evacuated. But there was nothing, not even static. He turned on the radio and even that was dead. He picked up his pocket radio with an external speaker and turned that on. Nothing except a small trace of static. Shannon sighed and said "Well, at least that works somewhat. Maybe it'll clear up later."  
  
Shannon then picked up a flashlight, thinking maybe the power went out all over town. Shannon sighed his profound relief when the flashlight worked. He grabbed the keys to his mother's car and stepped outside. His senses were assaulted by the stench of rotting meat. "Fuck," he cursed, "something must have gone wrong with the paper mill in Brahms."  
  
As he approached the car, a silver 1990 Buick Century, he heard a low growl coming from the backyard. "Fenris....is that you boy?"  
  
The only response was another growl, as well as the static from his pocket radio growing louder. A chill went up his spine as he pulled out the handgun. He peered over the fence and immediately a pinkish dog-like beast lunged for him, growling and snapping. Shannon landed on his back on the hood of the car, cursing. He readied the gun and stood next to the gate, knowing that that THING was waiting for him on the other side. Shannon steadied his nerves and kicked the fence open. Seeing the pink hound running for him, he aimed and opened fire until it was lying on its side. "What in the FUCK are you supposed to be?!" he asked the beast.  
  
Not surprisingly, the still beast gave no response. He knelt by it; its skin seemed almost membranous and translucent, revealing its muscle and sinew. The only things not pink were its eyes, which were dull and black. Shannon noticed as he moved closer to it that the rotting smell grew stronger. He backed away and covered his mouth and nose in a futile attempt to keep the smell out. Shannon's ears pricked up suddenly, when he realized that the radio wasn't emitting any more static. The only sound was his own breathing and his own footfalls on the grass.  
  
Shannon continued stepping backwards until he tripped and fell. He looked and saw grayish fur matted with blood. "Fenris?" he squeaked past the lump in his throat.  
  
He moved to a kneeling position and saw the mangled and decapitated body of his dog. Without thinking, Shannon turned and vomited in the bushes. When he finished and regained his composure, he stood and walked to the shed. He grabbed a shovel and dug a grave for Fenris, weeping openly. After burying him, he walked back to the car. "I swear I'll kill the motherfucker who did this to you," he whispered silently.  
  
He sat in the car and turned the key in the ignition. Silence. He pumped the gas pedal and tried again. Again, there was no response. "Fucking car," Shannon muttered. "Oh well, I guess I'm hoofing it from here. But where do I go?"  
  
He sat in the car, thinking to himself. He looked around and realized that the entire street was devoid of people. Normally, there would at least be a jogger or someone riding their bikes down Midwich Street. But no one was around. The air felt still, even though the fog whirled about and the snow blew steadily. There weren't any sounds either, not even a single bird chirping. Shannon sighed and decided to head to the elementary school, seeing as it was the closest building to his house. He shuddered (he never liked the place; gave him the creeps as a child) and stepped out of the car.  
  
As Shannon walked, he remembered what had basically brought him to Silent Hill in the first place. If he were to have his way, he would've rather lived with his father in Los Angeles. His father was a very affluent doctor and had accepted a job transfer to move to LA from their hometown, a small suburb outside of Calgary, Alberta. His mother was against it, saying that the city was too dangerous for a child of five years old. Then she had gotten a phone call from Dave, her high school sweetheart back in her old hometown, Silent Hill, Illinois. She had accepted his offer to live in Silent Hill to be with him, and after a bitter custody battle, moved Shannon with her. He was very resentful for many years; resentful towards his mother for leaving his father, resentful to his father for leaving him, and resentful towards this man for stealing his mother. And after a few years of living in Silent Hill, he resented his mother for bringing him there.  
  
At first, he loved Silent Hill. There was an amusement park across town, which Dave took him to regularly in a vain attempt to win him over. Shannon had always been a curious child, and the new surroundings fascinated him. That was until his first day at Midwich Elementary. The children constantly teased him or attacked him...calling him an "outlander" and "interloper". The teachers just stood by idly as it happened. His mother did nothing either, saying that "Shannon needed to become adjusted". She apparently didn't believe him, feeling that he was making stories up so she would go back to his father. It didn't stop until Shannon called his father in Los Angeles. His father believed him, especially after hearing his son sobbing uncontrollably. This forced his mother to investigate into it. After watching Shannon get pummeled mercilessly at the hands of taunting children, she stepped in and demanded that the teachers do something about it.  
  
They did. After a slap on the wrist for each of them, it all resumed. Dave then did something that redeemed himself somewhat to Shannon; he taught him to fight back. And fight back, Shannon did. After breaking several noses and a few ribs, he had gotten a week's worth of detentions. Although Shannon was infuriated that he got a worse punishment for defending himself than his attackers did, he laughed to himself and took it with pride. Especially when the few other kids in detention (who were older) began respecting him, eventually liking him.  
  
One of them was Dan Corris, who eventually became his best friend. He, not unlike Shannon, had moved to Silent Hill a couple years back from Chicago. Dan asked him out of the blue if the school seemed `strange' to him. Shannon admitted that it did, that it felt like a haunted house would feel. Dan simply said that it was because the school was in fact haunted. The entire town was haunted. That was when the detention monitor ordered Dan to be quiet, and told him that if it weren't for his `tall tales' he wouldn't be in detention.  
  
Through his years at Midwich Elementary, Shannon felt the chills up his spine as he walked through the halls. He could've sworn that he had heard sobbing in the empty restrooms. During classes, he'd hear the name "Samael" whispered in his thoughts. Then when he was in fifth grade, the Gillespie girl died in a fire. She was only 7, three years his junior. As Shannon tried remembering her name, the rising amount of static from his radio alerted him, drawing him back into the present. Then he heard wings flapping, growing ever closer. He turned and saw what looked like a man-sized pink pterodactyl heading right towards him, squawking in rage. He pulled out his gun and fired continuously into its barrel-like chest. As it breathed its last breath, the static in his radio died down. Shannon chuckled to himself. He held up his radio and said "Looks like you're not so useless after all."  
  
He looked around and saw no immediate danger. He leaned against a nearby tree and struggled to remember that girl's name. For some unknown reason, it seemed particularly important. He stood up straight and said aloud "Alessa". As he spoke, he felt a small breeze brush his face. He remembered Alessa. She was a quiet, awkward girl; kept mostly to herself. But she always smiled at him. It was whispered in school that Alessa had a crush on Shannon. While not overly pretty, she did seem to have a certain charm, especially when she smiled at Shannon, which always brought her a smile from him in return. But they never spoke, and even as Shannon thought about it now at 17, he wished he could've at least talked with her. Because even though they never exchanged words, Shannon honestly liked her. But it seemed that it was too late. He wondered what she would've been like now, seeing as she would've been 14. Would she have later blossomed? Shannon sighed, and continued walking.  
  
The radio suddenly roared to life, making the white noise almost deafening. He could see winged shadows swarming at him from a distance. A low growl and a rustle came from a pair of nearby bushes. Shannon suddenly burst into a run, almost slamming into the front door of the school. Safely inside, he slumped onto a bench to catch his breath.  
  
He started to rise, when he saw the sky suddenly darken through the windows, leaving everything blanketed in black. He fumbled for his flashlight and turned it on. It didn't do much, but at least it gave him enough illumination to see where he was going, and to hopefully see anything coming for him. He walked into the main hall, and as creepy as the school seemed to him as a child, it seemed almost suffocating now. Shannon wanted badly to dismiss it on the fact that it was almost totally dark inside, but he knew that it went much deeper than that. He walked up to the door to the adjoining hall but found it to be locked. He ran to the other door at the other end of the hall, but it was also locked. He remembered that there was another hallway that was accessible from the courtyard in the center of the school. Trying the door to the courtyard, he saw that it was unlocked. He stepped back outside, and with the static, heard shuffling footsteps in the distance. These sounded  
different from the hounds, but the static made him cautious. He stepped slowly out in the courtyard, and saw three small human-like shapes coming toward him. As they approached, they appeared to be children, except hairless and naked, wielding sharp knives. Shannon ran towards the other end of the schoolyard, barely escaping their grasp and their swinging knives.  
  
He reentered the school and was greeted by two more. Without thinking, he pulled out his gun and emptied it into them. One of them still seemed to be moving, so Shannon crushed its skull under his boot. When Shannon saw what he had done, he slumped to the floor, crying. "What have I done?" he whispered. He always felt that no matter how bad a child was, no child deserved to die. He knew that he was defending himself, but it didn't stop the tears.  
  
He crawled up to one of them, and gasped in horror at what he saw. While its body looked somewhat like a child, its face, or lack thereof, was where the similarity ended. It looked hideous and corrupt, almost demonic. Shannon got up and dusted himself off. Despite himself, Shannon erupted into laughter. It wasn't of the maniacal sort, like that of a man on the edge of sanity. It was more like that of someone who finally got a very funny joke. Shannon sighed and said, "It was almost like my childhood all over again!" Shannon laughed again, then stopped when he realized his gun was empty. "Fuck, where am I gonna find ammo in a fucking elementary school?!"  
  
Shannon stepped into the detention hall. The room was completely bare of furniture. He then saw the glint of metal reflecting his flashlight beam. He walked up to it and laughed aloud again, for on the floor were two boxes of bullets. As he bent down to pick them up, his radio blared back to life. He turned and aimed his gun, but saw nothing. Then he saw the shadow, aimed and fired. The shadow kept moving, sometimes stumbling and falling. "Huh, a ghost," Shannon said. He walked up to it and it disappeared, the static fading as its form dissipated.  
  
He then felt a sudden twinge in his bladder. "Oh my god," he said and laughed. He walked down the hall and entered the next hall. The radio blared to life again, and he saw the childlike shapes approaching him. He ran down to the other end of the hall and quickly entered the boys' room.  
  
After relieving himself, he walked up to the sink and turned on the faucet, but nothing came out. He looked in the mirror and saw his face mired in mud, with newly forming lines on his cheeks. "Shannon my boy," he said to his reflection, running his fingers through his long red hair, "this thing is making you look older than you are."  
  
He stepped out in the hallway and saw nothing about, and heard nothing but the static from his radio. He crept cautiously and heard a moan behind him. He turned suddenly and saw nothing. But he realized his error too late when he felt something slash the back of his upper thigh. Screaming in pain and rage, he turned around and shot his attacker point blank in the head. He remembered where the nurse's office was, and limped to it. He saw that there was one first aid kit left, and cleaned and bandaged his wound.  
  
He sat on the bed, and suddenly his constant rush of adrenaline had finally run out. He walked up to the door and locked it tight, then collapsed on the bed in a heap, unconsciousness taking over. 


	2. Signs Of Chaos

Shannon bolted upright, suddenly remembering where he was and his immediate danger. The room was totally dark, except the room felt different. "Where am I?" he asked himself.  
  
He noticed that he was covered in sweat, especially since the room felt very humid. "Man, I'm fucking roasting my balls off," he said. "Maybe it was all a dream..."  
  
He felt his body and noticed that he was still wearing the same clothes he slept in. He felt for the flashlight and turned it on. The sight that greeted him made him jump. The walls appeared to have blood smeared all over them. The floor and ceiling appeared to be made of rusted chainlink. Somewhere in the distance, he heard an air raid siren wailing. "Where in the fuck am I?!" he shouted.  
  
He staggered around the room and saw a case filled with bottles of some drug, as well as some energy drinks. Since he practically lived off Red Bull for nearly a year, he grabbed those, swigging one of them down. He felt the effect immediately and felt rejuvenated. He walked to the door and panicked briefly when he saw that the door was locked. His relief was profound, though, when he saw that it was locked from his side. "That's strange," he muttered. "...Unless..."  
  
He opened the door and found himself in a long empty hall, with two doors on either side, plus with two other doors as well as a fenced in section. Something troubled him, and he felt a distinct sense of deja vu. He walked down the hallway towards the center, and instinctively took a right, opening the door.  
  
He found himself outside, amidst a torrential downpour. He walked around, following each of the walls until he saw that it was a secured courtyard. He looked up and saw a clock tower. It was then when he realized that somehow he was still at the school. "What in the hell happened to this place?" he whispered.  
  
He walked to the center and saw a circular emblem etched into the concrete. It featured two circles around a triangle, with various letters in what appeared to be Hebrew at each corner. "I didn't notice this before..." he muttered. "Just how long was I out?"  
  
He walked back inside and suddenly the radio roared to life, with two very familiar shadows coming for him. "Oh, fuck me!" he shouted. "Not you again!"  
  
One of them merely groaned in reply and lifted its knife. Shannon shouted and shot them both in the head. He ran to the end of the hall and opened the door. He ran down the other hall only to ram headlong into a fence of the same chainlink that made the floor and ceiling. Suddenly he vaguely remembered that each classroom was linked to the other, so he entered the nearest one. Sure enough, there was a door, leading to the classroom next door. There were also four demon children in the room with him. "I don't have time for this shit," he shouted.  
  
Dodging them, he ran into the next classroom. He was blessedly alone. All he could see were metal chairs strewn about, some in groups of three facing each other. As he walked into the room, he felt something brush his ear, making him jump. He pulled out his gun and shouted, "Who are you? ...Show yourself!!"  
  
He heard a light voice whispering. A soft, feminine voice. "Shannon," it whispered.  
  
"WHO ARE YOU?" he cried. "WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!"  
  
"Help me, Shannon," the voice whispered again.  
  
The flashlight went out, leaving him in darkness. "Fucking batteries," Shannon cursed. The voice whispered again, this time into his thoughts. "Help me, Shannon," it said. "Please, help me."  
  
He began walking, as if guided by an irresistible force. The darkness was almost comforting, for he heard the creatures around him pass by him, not knowing or caring that he was there. He suddenly tripped on what appeared to be stairs. He climbed them...climbing, climbing, climbing.  
  
He climbed the spiraling steps until he reached a door. He opened it and found himself on the roof. He saw a human figure standing near the edge. "Hello?" he shouted. "Who are you?"  
  
The figure turned to face him. It appeared to be a young girl, apparently in her mid-teens, wearing a blue sundress. She smiled at him and disappeared. "Huh?" Shannon whispered. He then saw a bright flash of light, knocking him backwards and unconscious.  
  
~ ~ ~ ~ ~  
  
Shannon awoke to the sensation of snow touching his face. He opened his eyes and found himself on the roof of the school. Everything seemed the way that it used to be, except for the fog and the snow. "Who was that?" he whispered.  
  
Something about her seemed familiar to him. He stood near the ledge looking out, but the fog obscured his vision. Suddenly he heard the door open behind him. He whirled around and aimed his gun. "Whoa, Shannon!" a familiar voice greeted him. "Dude, it's me!"  
  
The figure stood about 6'1". It was a man with somewhat of a stocky build, with long black hair and the start of a goatee. He wore a biker's jacket, ripped jeans, and a well-worn T-shirt of some obscure rock group. On his head was a black baseball cap turned around, and he wore eyeglasses with black plastic rims. "Dan?!" he cried.  
  
"Yeah, man. Now are you gonna put the gun down?"  
  
"Oh, sorry. You won't believe the time I've been having."  
  
Dan's face turned grim. "Try me.  
  
"I woke up today to find that my girlfriend had ditched me. Not too unusual, right?"  
  
"Right," Shannon agreed. Dan was never too lucky with women. They'd stay with him for a few nights and then they'd be nowhere to be found. "Go on," he said.  
  
"Anyway, I got up and went upstairs for a bite to eat. Only to find there was no food in the house. Naturally, I flipped out."  
  
Shannon had to chuckle. His friend was reputed for having a healthy appetite. "I shouted at my old lady that we were completely out of food. There was no one in the house. Then I left and this giant fucking bird attacked me. I ran back into the house and grabbed my old man's sawed-off 12 gauge, went back outside, and shot the motherfucker down." He hefted the weapon to accentuate his point. "I started over to your house, but you weren't home. But I saw a bunch of these dead things lying around, so I thought you must've seen some action."  
  
Shannon simply nodded and held up his handgun. "So where'd you go next?"  
  
"I grabbed your bike and started peddling my ass to the hospital, thinking that someone might have brought you there. I ended up having to cut through a few people's yards because of the roads being the way they are."  
  
"What do you mean?" Shannon interjected.  
  
"Obliterated, man," Dan said.  
  
"What?!"  
  
"Ripped to fucking shreds, man. Like in `Evil Dead'. I nearly bought it a couple of times!"  
  
Shannon cursed, and said, "Wait a minute, where's my bike?"  
  
"Down in front of the school. Now if I may continue?"  
  
"Yeah, go on."  
  
"Anyway, I passed by the church and you'll never guess who I nearly ran over."  
  
"Who?"  
  
"That crazy Gillespie lady. You know, that bitch whose daughter burned alive? Anyway, she started going on about signs and portents and crap like that, but I ignored her and continued to the hospital, but the bridge was up. Thankfully, I stole my old man's keys, you know, so I could take the car, but the thing wouldn't run. But since Dad works at the bridge, I was able to get the bridge lowered with his key. When the bridge went down, I rode to the hospital. I got in there and start calling for you, but you weren't there. Then...promise you won't laugh at me. `Cause I'm not making this up."  
  
"I'm in no shape to laugh, dude. Talk to me," Shannon said.  
  
"The ground started lurching and I think I must've passed out, `cause next thing I know, it got dark all of a sudden...so dark I couldn't see shit. Then I struck my lighter and the place suddenly changed..."  
  
"Into a Rammstein fan's wet dream?" Shannon said. "Chainlink floors and ceilings, blood on the walls...some sort of industrial hell?"  
  
"You've seen it too?"  
  
"Yeah, it just recently changed back to normal for me."  
  
"What did you find here? All I saw were these fucked-up nurses wielding scalpels trying to perform a radical vasectomy on me. I blew `em away pretty quick; I felt kinda like Ash from Evil Dead 2 the whole time!"  
  
They both laughed, and Shannon said, "I saw these little skinless children wielding knives. Scared the crap out of me, man. I was having flashbacks of elementary school all over again. I also saw this chick in a blue sundress. In a way, she was kinda hot, if it weren't for the creepy vibe I got off her. Before I could ask for her name, she faded out. That's when the place became normal again." Shannon looked around and said "If you could call THIS normal."  
  
"No shit, dude," Dan said. "Anyway, I went down into the hospital basement and found some weird drugs. Looked almost like coke."  
  
"You didn't take any, did you?"  
  
"Fuck no, man! You know I'm strictly green!"  
  
"Yeah. Go on."  
  
"Anyway, I went further and found a secret tunnel further down into the basement. I saw this room with Alessa's picture and a life support machine. Which would mean that Alessa didn't die, but was kept alive for the past seven years. When I figured that out, the place shifted and I heard an air raid siren in the distance. I passed out again, and woke up in the waiting room. No blood, no chains, no nothing. It was like I went through a bad acid trip, but it was just too real."  
  
"So what brought you here?"  
  
"I was actually on my way back home when I heard something coming from the roof of the school. I went over to investigate and found you. Now come on, let's get out of here. Let's find a road that hasn't been wiped out and just bail."  
  
"I dunno, man. I think the ghost chick that I saw before things changed back was Alessa. That whole time, I could hear someone in my mind begging for me to help."  
  
"Um, dude, have you been borrowing any of my pot?"  
  
"Dude, you just said that Alessa may be alive. And the shit that's been happening hasn't exactly been normal. I say we go back to the hospital and try to find something like medical records or something."  
  
"Uh-uh, no way dude. There's no way you can talk me into going back there."  
  
"Come on, we'll take this on together. You know, watch each other's backs. Besides, we're both armed. Together, we can blow the piss out of anything that stands in our way."  
  
"Okay, you talked me into it."  
  
With that, Dan and Shannon walked down to the school's entrance and collected Shannon's bike. "Hold on, I thought I saw another bike nearby," Dan said.  
  
Shannon nodded and waited. About ten minutes later, he showed back up on a similar bike to Shannon's. "Hey, what the hell? Not like anyone's gonna be using it anytime soon!"  
  
Shannon shrugged, and together, they rode to the hospital. It was a relatively uneventful ride, with the exception of a few winged demons, which they easily outmaneuvered. They got up to the gates and saw the bodies of two demon dogs beyond, each with a singed gaping hole. Shannon looked at Dan, who was grinning ear to ear. "Nice work, my friend!" Shannon said.  
  
"Nothing ol' double-barrel here can't handle!"  
  
They walked through the gates, leaving their bikes against the entrance. Shannon walked up to the door and paused. He turned to Dan and said "Anything waiting inside?"  
  
"Shouldn't be," Dan said. "Maybe some rats or some roaches. I saw one about the size of a rat in the basement, but it was relatively normal looking."  
  
Shannon nodded and opened the door. Other than it being deserted and deathly quiet, there was nothing out of the ordinary. He turned to Dan and said "Coast is clear, dude."  
  
When they walked in, Dan said "Where do you think we should start looking for the medical records?"  
  
Shannon jumped across the reception desk and pulled out a map, locating the records office. "Right here, chief," he smiled.  
  
He rejoined his friend on the other side of the desk. They got up to the door and found the latch to be jammed. "Hey Dan," Shannon said. "You wanna do the honors with ol' double-barrel?"  
  
"Thought you'd never ask, buddy!"  
  
Dan nudged Shannon out of the way and aimed for the door with his shotgun. Shannon closed his ears just before Dan pulled the trigger, shattering the door latch. He then backed up and rammed the door, which destroyed the rest of the lock bursting the door open. They walked in and found the room to be a mess. Papers and file folders were all over the place. Drawers were opened and overturned. "Hmm," Shannon said. "Someone musta been lookin' for something."  
  
"This, obviously," Dan said, holding up a burnt piece of paper he found in the wastebasket.  
  
Shannon walked up to Dan and looked at the paper. The only writing still legible read "Ales..."  
  
"Obviously someone doesn't want anyone to see this. Right, Shannon?"  
  
Dan looked at Shannon, who was clutching his ears and falling to the floor. Suddenly, he heard a siren in the distance growing louder until it seemed it was in his skull. He felt his legs give way until he was curled in a fetal position on the floor. Both of them screamed in unison until they passed out. 


	3. So Many Lies

Shannon awoke and saw the room had gone black. "Shit, not again," he said to himself.  
  
He listened in hopes to hear Dan's breathing, but could hear nothing. "Dan," he said, "are you here?"  
  
He turned on his flashlight and saw that Dan was nowhere to be found. "Oh man, I hope nothing happened to him," he said.  
  
He hooked the flashlight to his pocket and headed towards the door. As he turned, the light illuminated one of the walls. Shannon gasped as he saw the words "HELP ME" written in large letters in blood. "DAN!!!" he cried.  
  
He then heard a whisper in his head; the same feminine whisper he heard in the school. "Help me, Shannon. Please..."  
  
He opened the door and exited to the hallway. He scanned the hall with his flashlight, happening upon a scrap on the floor. He bent down to pick it up, and realized it was a torn piece of canvas. On the scrap had the same symbol Shannon saw in the schoolyard inscribed in burnt umber. "Fuckin' bizarre, man," he said.  
  
He pocketed it and went in the direction of the basement, remembering what Dan had told him. He walked down the stairs and entered the basement hall. He saw the shadow of a hunched figure skulking in the darkness. "Dan? Is that you?"  
  
It turned and began ambling towards him. Judging by its attire, it appeared to be a nurse. However, she was grotesquely bent with a wiggling protrusion on her back. The flashlight caught the small glint of a rusted scalpel in her hand. Shannon backed away, but not quick enough, for the nurse grabbed him by the neck. "Fuckin' bitch," he cursed as he broke out of her embrace, aimed the pistol at her head, and pulled the trigger. It collapsed on the floor, the protrusion wiggling more fervently. Enraged, Shannon stomped on it until it splattered against his boots.  
  
He paused and looked on the map for the storeroom, remembering what Dan had said about the secret passage. He entered the room and saw various metal shelves with bottles of a white powder. "Hmm," he said to himself, "this must be the drug Dan was telling me about."  
  
He picked up a bottle and gave a small sniff, careful not to inhale any of it. The smell, although not unpleasant, seemed `wrong' to him. He quickly put the bottle down and began investigating the rest of the room. He looked at the wall and saw a shelf that had apparently been moved, revealing a hole in the wall big enough for a man to squeeze through. "Dan?" he called inside the hole, receiving no response.  
  
He squeezed through the hole and saw a small room with an open trap door with a stairwell leading down into it. He walked down the stairs and found himself in a long hallway. "This is very strange," he whispered to himself. He later added, "Heh, isn't THAT stating the obvious!"  
  
He continued down the corridor and saw another pair of nurses. Taking careful aim, he shot them both before they could see him. At the end of the corridor, there were three doors, only one of them seemed able to open. "Hmm," he said quietly, "I guess I'll take what's behind Door #1, Monty."  
  
The door opened, revealing another hallway. The hall was devoid of any nurses, to which Shannon was quite thankful. He noticed a newspaper on the ground, the date going back to January 20, 1993:  
  
Young Girl In Critical Condition After Fire Destroyed Home  
  
SILENT HILL (Ap): The cause of the fire on January 13th which destroyed a local home has been ruled by Silent Hill Police Department's Arson division as an electrical fire. Of the residents, 7 year-old Alessa Gillespie remains in critical condition. Her mother, 38 year-old Dahlia Gillespie, was unharmed, but was visibly shaken. She was recently released from the psychiatric division of Silent Hill Hospital after being ruled in stable condition. Alessa had been transferred to Alchemilla Hospital and is currently under observation. Her supervising physician, Dr. Michael Kaufmann, was unavailable for comment...  
  
Shannon pocketed the clipping and opened the nearest door. He found himself in the room Dan had described to him. Except there was a figure clad entirely in bandages lying on the bed with tubes attached to its body. The tubes were being fed by bags of a whitish fluid. As Shannon approached the bed, the figure and feeding apparatus faded away. He approached the machine and saw a framed picture resting on it, with a picture of Alessa on it. Shannon sighed and said "Poor thing..."  
  
Suddenly, Shannon heard a crash outside the room. He ran back into the hall and found no one or nothing. He started back down the way he came when he felt something being launched by the toe of his boot. Investigating, he saw it was a flowery book with the words "My Journal" embossed on its cover. He opened it and saw the words "Property of Alessa" scrawled on the inside. He began reading it to himself:  
  
Dear Diery,  
  
Mommy is acting really weerd today. She's always being weerd. Talking about how she wants my power to grow. She's always going with those people late at night. I ask her if I can go, but she always tells me in time I can go. What does she do? When I ask her, she tells me its all in her plans for me....  
  
Shannon read on, genuinely disturbed by what he was reading. What was Dahlia putting her through, he asked himself in his mind. Towards the end of the journal, he read a bit that made him smile, and shiver a bit:  
  
January 12, 1993  
  
Dear Diary,  
  
I was in class with that new boy again. He's so cute. He acts different from the other boys in school. He's very quiet, but whenever he looks at me he smiles. He hardly ever smiles. Only when he's with that weird kid Danny (I suppose he's his best friend) or whenever he looks at me. I think he likes me. But I guess he's too shy. Or maybe he's scared of Mommy. Danny tells him scary stories about my Mommy. Everybody does. They call me Scary Gillespie. Except for Shannon. He's always nice to me, even though he doesn't talk to me. At least he says hi to me. I'm scared if I talk to him he'll laugh at me.  
  
Mommy says I have a big day tomorrow. I don't care. Mommy is even scaring me, wanting me to give her power...  
  
Shannon stood in silence, taken aback by what he read. He looked up and saw the girl in the blue sundress again, leaning against the wall. She was looking forlornly at the floor. "Alessa?" Shannon said.  
  
She looked up at him, still looking sad, her eyes looking at him questioningly. "Alessa, I wouldn't have laughed at you," Shannon said. "I promise."  
  
She responded by smiling faintly. Shannon approached her, but she ran away, slipping through the wall like mist. He sighed and walked the rest of the way to the storeroom. Entering the hallway, he heard machinery running. He looked to the elevator and saw the buttons lit up, with the number 3 illuminated. He pressed the button, and when the doors opened, he entered the elevator and went to the third floor. When the doors opened, he heard a very masculine shout of rage down the hall. 


	4. The Haunting

Dan woke up in the records office with a splitting headache. The world had shifted again and Shannon wasn't anywhere to be found. Dan kicked a nearby chair and cursed. "So much for sticking together, huh, asshole..." Dan muttered to himself. But he found no sign of him having ever been in the room. And he knew that although Shannon was a bit of a basket case, he was a good guy and Dan realized that Shannon wouldn't have ditched him.  
  
Dan turned on his flashlight and opened the door. Immediately, he was greeted by a pair of zombie nurses lunging at him with scalpels. Dan quickly sidestepped and fired both barrels pointblank into their temples. Looking down the hall, he shouted "Shannon!!", but got no response. He walked down the hall towards the door to the basement. However, the basement was locked tight. He entertained the notion of blasting the lock with his shotgun, but realized that he should conserve his ammo until he found Shannon. He then remembered that there was an elevator and that it might go down into the basement. He soon pressed the button and was almost surprised to see the doors open immediately. The elevator was covered in the same blood-and-rust motif that the hospital and apparently the school was decorated in.  
  
He entered the elevator and pressed the 'B' button, but got no response. He then started jabbing each of the buttons in fury, cursing until the doors shut and he felt the lift moving upwards. When the doors opened, he realized he was on the third floor. He stepped off and was almost clipped by the doors as they shut. Dan started walking down the dark and bloody corridor, investigating as many rooms as he could. Most of them were empty, with the exception of one where he found some extra shells and some bullets which he grabbed eagerly. In another room, he found a TV with a VCR that looked almost 20 years old. A quick once-over showed that it had a tape in it. Dan shrugged and turned the TV and VCR on and pressed play.  
  
At first, he was amazed that something actually worked in this place. But that quickly faded when he saw that the tape had nothing but a scrambled picture on it. He was about ready to dismiss it as some loser's attempt to record scrambled porn when he heard patches of a woman talking about a patient. He shrugged and ejected the tape, stashing it in his pocket. Maybe he and Shannon (if he ever saw him again) could decipher the tape. He sat on the bed and wondered what Shannon was going on about as far as Scary Gillespie was concerned. Sure, she seemed like a nice girl and all, and he had no doubt in his mind that her mother had something to do with the fire. But as far as Dan was concerned, the main priority was to get the hell out of town, steal a van, and smoke as much pot as possible.  
  
He stood up and opened the door. The moment he walked out in the hall, he was surrounded on all sides by nurses. He dodged as well as he could, but felt surgical steel penetrate his thigh. He hefted his weapon, firing repeatedly, screaming in berserk rage. But in his panic, he dropped his extra shells and there was still one nurse still standing. It lunged for him and he successfully dodged the attack, but he lost his footing and landed on his back. He covered his face awaiting his doom when he heard the sounds of gunfire. He uncovered his face and saw that the nurse had been hit and had turned around. The gunfire continued until the nurse was twitching on the floor. He then collapsed in a heap on the floor, adrenaline finally giving out.  
  
Dan came to in the room with the VCR. He felt the still-warm barrel of the shotgun next to him and the sting of his wounded thigh, which grew into a sharp pain when he tried to move it. He cried out and grabbed his leg, surprised to find that it had been crudely bandaged. He sat up gingerly and saw Shannon sitting nearby looking at him. "Welcome back, man," Shannon said. "If you took any longer, I would've had to resort to drastic measures to wake you up."  
  
"Oh yeah?" Dan grumbled. "Like how?"  
  
"Well, there's gotta be a bowl with warm water here that I can dip your hand into," Shannon said, laughing.  
  
"Ha ha, very fucking funny. Better get you your own show on NBC after 'Friends'. Just why the fuck did you leave me in that room?"  
  
"You weren't in the room when I woke up. I left the room looking for you."  
  
Dan looked at him intensely and realized that Shannon was telling the truth. "So did you find anything?" Dan said.  
  
"Yeah, I found the room where Alessa was being kept alive. I also found this newspaper clipping and this...thing here." With his last words, he showed him the scrap of canvas with the bizarre symbol. Shannon felt it best that Dan didn't see the diary just yet.  
  
Dan took the canvas and looked at it. "Yeah, this is the crest of the Hebrew archangel Samael. Supposedly, Samael first manifested as the serpent who tempted Eve with the fruit of infernal knowledge, which expelled humanity from Paradise."  
  
"How'd you know that?" Shannon asked him.  
  
"Eh, just a song from a some goth band," Dan said, shrugging.  
  
"Oh." Shannon said. "So, you think you can walk on that leg?"  
  
"I'll try like hell," Dan said.  
  
Dan attempted to stand and immediately felt his leg start to give out. Shannon rushed to his friend and put Dan's arm around his shoulder. "C'mon buddy, let's get out of here."  
  
The hallway was blessedly free of any nurses as Shannon and Dan went to the elevator. When they got to the first floor, Dan said "Maybe in one of these rooms there's a better first aid kit and hopefully some aspirin or something."  
  
Shannon nodded and together they went towards the room where the doctors did their initial exams before admitting patients. The door opened into a small hallway with a locked door at the other end. After crashing through the door, Dan landed on his leg screaming in agony. As Shannon looked around, he caught a glimpse of movement. He turned towards the movement and aimed his gun and was face to face with a stunningly gorgeous - and very frightened - nurse. She was still in uniform and had long, soft blonde hair. Her face was slightly pale and there were some dark circles around her eyes. "Oh my god, someone who's normal!" she said, making no attempt to hide her profound relief.  
  
"We're both glad to see you, too," Shannon said sincerely. "Look, my friend here is wounded and he needs someone who's better at this sort of thing than me."  
  
The nurse looked at Dan and nodded. "Here, help me get him on the bed," she said to Shannon.  
  
Each taking an arm, they hefted Dan onto a bed. The nurse looked him over and said to Dan, "I'm going to need to remove your pants."  
  
Dan grinned widely and said "Please do!"  
  
"Down boy," Shannon said. "She wants to get a look at your leg."  
  
"She can get a look at whatever she likes!" Dan laughed.  
  
The laughter was joined by both Shannon and their new friend, who introduced herself as Lisa Garland. After pulling Dan's pants off, she got up and took a bottle of rubbing alcohol, some gauze, and some bandage tape. Cleaning the wound, she said "This wound could've been a lot worse, Dan. Luckily, you're not going to need stitches."  
  
"That's a relief," Shannon said. "So what happened here?"  
  
"Your guess is as good as mine," Lisa said. "I was just coming on my shift when I slipped and fell. I guess I must've gotten knocked out. When I woke up, everything was like this!"  
  
"Lisa, do you know anything about Alessa Gillespie?"  
  
"A little bit," Lisa said. "That poor girl was brought in covered in third degree burns 7 years ago. I was actually in charge of looking after her until Dr. Kaufmann relieved me of it. I felt so bad for her..."  
  
Shannon looked at her and had a feeling that she wasn't telling him the whole truth, but she looked sincerely shaken by the memory so he didn't press her. What he saw was someone who honestly cared for her and did the best she could for her. "Look, you guys. You two look seriously exhausted. Maybe you two should rest here. Dan should let his leg rest anyways so it can heal."  
  
"Yeah," Shannon said. Dan was already out cold, sleeping fitfully. Shannon sat at the desk and watched Lisa attend to Dan, tucking him into bed. He leaned back and dozed off. 


End file.
